Avi Agarwal is neither cynical nor a therapist. Yet, he is on the hunt for problems.

The enthusiastic and perpetually smiling Cupertino resident and student at The Harker School is asking whoever will tell him their troubles to do so, because Avi thinks music is the solution to a great number of engineering problems.

Avi, 17, started up Music of Movement, a system that enables the manipulation of any mechanical object with any external sound source or an electronic instrument plugged into the system.

"What is so magical about this is that I did not create just a single thing like an iPod or a single device; it's technology that can be implemented into anything," he said.

Avi's technology allows him to manipulate mechanical movements with discrete sound frequencies and notes. Because the external sound source and the targeted object can be changed, the application of this circuit is infinite, he says.

An engineer, musician and car aficionado, Avi came up with the idea for Music of Movement as he was tuning his ill-sounding guitar one day.

"It sounded really bad, or at least I thought so. I hope it wasn't my playing," he jokes.

As he tightened the strings, he noticed that the electronic tuner he was using could read the frequencies of the sound and then convert that sound into electronic signals to turn on the light indicating the note being played. The observation got him thinking that if he could reverse engineer the tuner, he could use its technology to control any mechanical object.

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Using the same algorithm the tuner used to convert sound frequencies to electricity, Avi found he could run that current through any mechanical object, which allowed him to control objects with music.

Avi's love of cars soon came to play. He tested his theory by building a prototype circuit that would control a radio-controlled car with any external sound source. The test resulted in music that was literally moving as the RC car followed the commands of his guitar.

"The moment I saw my car move with the pluck of a guitar string, that was the moment I realized the potential it could have," Avi says.

A demonstration video of the guitar and RC car can be found on YouTube under the username "14avia."

In addition to allowing the user to effectively manipulate objects with any external sound source, Avi's circuit has a mode in which a specific sound source is read and all other external sound sources are ignored. The system also uses both sound waves and radio signals. His efficient design, he believes, results in manufacturing costs under $5.

Avi's success with the RC car was enough for him to file for a provisional patent and research similar patents. So far, his research won him an honorable mention at a recent Synopsys Science Fair, and he was also recognized with a proclamation by the Cupertino City Council for his work.

His goal now is to bring as much awareness as he can to his technology and find any support to help research. Since he believes Music of Movement can be used in so many different ways, he is looking for potential applications.

"I have the opposite of a formula; I have the solution but not the problem," he says.

His search for a problem to be solved led Avi to El Camino Hospital, where staff directed him to the company NuMotion, which donated a wheelchair with the goal of allowing quadriplegics more freedom of movement. To that end, Avi intends to use his circuit to rig the wheelchair so it can be controlled via harmonica.

"With a harmonica, you can blow in and out to make a note. They can be breathing and still be moving," Avi says.

Avi has also been recommended for a licensing deal with wheelchair manufacturers.

Other possible uses for the technology would be to allow disabled persons to operate everyday objects by sound, machines to shut down on their own at a cry of pain from their operator, and robots to respond appropriately when an animal makes a certain noise indicating a specific mood.

Avi also envisions video games that operate off of sound instead of remote controls, and humanoid robots that respond to the sounds they "hear."

"Anytime you have an electrical current, you can do amazing things; you just need to initialize that circuit," he says. "When I saw that sound could trigger many mechanical objects, it was one of those instant realizations and one of those moments where your mind explodes and the universe of possibilities erupted."